.NET Tips and Tricksby Peter Vogel

Making Breakpoints Useful in Visual Studio

How many times have you done this because you wanted to check how the value of some variable changes over time:

Set a breakpoint

Wait for Visual Studio to stop on the line

Check the value of the variables you're interested in

Press F5 to continue

Wait for Visual to stop on the line again

Check the value of the variables you're interested in

Press F5 to continue

Repeat ...

There's a better way. You can have your breakpoints automatically print a message to your Output Windows and keep right on executing. You'll get a reviewable list of all of the values your variable has had, listed in order (no more "Wait! What was the last value? I've forgotten.").

How you take advantage of this feature depends on what version of Visual Studio you're using. In older versions of Visual Studio, right-click on a breakpoint and select the When Hit option from the popup menu. In more recent versions of Visual Studio, you still right-click on the breakpoint, but then you select the Actions option.

In the resulting dialog box you can put in any text you want displayed, along with the names of the variables whose values you want displayed. The variable names must be enclosed in curly braces ( { } ). This example displays the value of the EditorCount variable with the text "Count:":

Count: {EditorCount}

You'll also find that you have a Continue Execution option in the dialog. That option is checked by default and, if you leave it checked, then Visual Studio won't stop executing when it reaches your breakpoint. Instead, when Visual Studio reaches your breakpoint, you'll get your message logged to the Output window and Visual Studio will keep right on going.